Master of the Sea, by Margaret Powell, published by Alison Hodge at £14.95 ISBN 0-906720-37-0
Margaret Powell is the grand-daughter of Charles Napier Hemy, the mid-Victorian marine artist whose paintings hang in yacht clubs and art galleries around the world. In this fine book she tells his story and reproduces the canvasses from the London River in 1874, through the Falmouth Regatta in 1885 to Dartmouth entrance in 1913.

Smeaton’s Tower, by Christopher Severn, published by Seafarer Books at £13.95 ISBN 0-9542750-9-8
Facing the dreaded reef of red rocks 14 miles out from Plymouth in the English Channel is Smeaton’s Tower standing on Plymouth Hoe. Once it stood on the rocks themselves and this is the story of John Smeaton, the world’s first civil engineer, who inisisted that stone and not wood was the material which should be used to build a lighthouse on the Eddystone reef.

Offshore, by Peter Collyer, published by Adlard Coles Nautical at £27.99 ISBN 0-7136-7176-9
This is an unusual look at Britain’s coastline via the country’s islands; from Canvey Island in Essex, with its caravans and methane gas terminal to the Scilly Isles with its exotic plants and former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s holiday bungalow. At each location Peter – famous for his award winning book on the Shipping Forecast, Rain Later, Good, has set up his easel and turned out an ethereal water-colour which are reproduced in the book.

A Mariner’s Miscellany, by Peter H. Spectre, published by Seafarer Books at £12.95 ISBN 0-9547062-1-8
Formerly editor of the American Wooden Boat Magazine Peter Spectre is also the author of The Mariner’s Book of Days which is published annually. So he is well placed to compile a compendium of all things nautical from how to navigate by the seaweed line to washing clothes at sea.

Roving Commissions 45, edited by Jonny Clothier , published by the Royal Cruising Club at £15.99
A well illustrated and inspiring read covering all areas of the world from member’s logs. They include David Lomax’s cruise to Norway, Bob Shepton in Barbados and Andy O’Grady on the eastern seaboard of the USA.